Tag Archives: newspapers

From Newsprint to New Media: The Evolving Role of Nikkei Newspapers

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I had the pleasure in April of giving a presentation, “From Newsprint to New Media: The Evolving Role of Nikkei Newspaper,” followed by a panel which I moderated, looking at the vibrant history of Japanese community newspapers. The program, which was organized by Discover Nikkei, was held at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. Discover Nikkei is a project of JANM, and hosts its own very cool website that showcases the Nikkei experience from people of Japanese descent all over the world.

Like the newspaper industry in general across the U.S., publications that serve Japanese communities — both Japanese-speaking and English-speaking Japanese Americans — have suffered from tough economic times, falling advertising dollars and declining readership. But also like the rest of the industry, Nikkei newspapers are evolving to suit the needs of the future.

That’s the framework I wanted to establish in my presentation, which I’ve embedded above. I followed my talk with brief introductions by four panelists describing their history and various current approaches to Nikkei media, and then a panel discussion about what’s in store for the future. I’ve embedded videos of the entire program below, which was shot, edited and assembled by the Discover Nikkei staff as an album of video clips on this page.
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Why it’s important for me to be part of AAJA and in the company of Asian American journalists

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Tak Toyoshima, creator of Secret Asian Man, and Jeff Yang, one of the editors of "Secret Identities," at the 2009 AAJA Convention in Boston.
Tak Toyoshima, creator of “Secret Asian Man,” and Jeff Yang, one of the editors of the recently-published book “Secret Identities,” sign copies at the 2009 AAJA Convention in Boston.

“Where are you from?” “So, where are YOU from?” “Hi, where’re you from?”

I was in Boston a couple of weeks ago, at a convention where everyone asked each other “Where are you from?” and no one got offended. It cracked me up, hearing the question over and over.

Let me explain, for my non-Asian readers: Just about every Asian American I know – seriously – has been asked this question sometime (or many times) in their life. It’s often preceded by a variation of the statement, “You speak English so well… where are you from?” And once we answer “California,” or “Denver,” it’s often followed by a variation of “No, you know what I mean, where were you born?” Which might be followed, after we answer “California” or “New York City,” by “No, where’s your FAMILY from?”

That’s when we can cut off the silliness and get to the point: “Are you asking what’s my ethnic heritage?”

I just don’t see European Americans having this conversation, unless they have, say, a British or French or German accent. People assume Asian Americans are foreigners even if we “speak English so well” because of the way we look.

Anyway, I heard the “where are you from?” question dozens of times and we all answered eagerly without getting defensive. It’s because the ones asking were also AAPI, and we really did want to know where each other was from. We were at the annual convention of the Asian American Journalists Association, a non-profit professional organization that supports Asian Americans in the media.

And after spending several days in Boston with the AAJA, I have hope for journalism. Continue reading →

The Rocky Mountain News’ closure gives me pause

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The final front page of the Rocky Mountain News, Feb. 27, 2009We all live our lives way too fast. We rush to work, work at a fast clip, rush home and barely get a chance to chill out before, as a wimpy ’70s singer-songwriter once crooned, “we get up and do it again.”

So the death of the Rocky Mountain News, like the death of a close friend or family member, has given me pause. It’s making me reflect a bit on my own mortality: as a news junkie, journalist, writer, Internet geek and human being.

First of all, I feel terrible about the Rocky’s closing. I feel worse — a lot worse — than I thought I’d feel. It’s a business decision. But it affects hundreds of people, many of whom I know. In fact, I’ve known some of the staff at the Rocky for almost 30 years. In between jobs, I’ve written more freelance stories for the Rocky than for The Denver Post, the newspaper that’s left standing in Denver.

Now I work for MediaNews Group Interactive, the online operation of the Denver Post’s parent company. People — especially bloggers who cover the media — like to throw barbs at MediaNews and its owner, Denver-based Dean Singleton because he buys up newspapers and usually trims their operations to make them more profitable. “More profitable” of course is a relative term these days. Maybe we should settle for “less unprofitable” in these terrible economic times.
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Farewell to the Rocky Mountain News

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I know I haven’t been writing much on the blog — I have a bunch of things stacked up, and I’m always babbling in small bits on Twitter and Facebook.

But I needed to embed this video from the Rocky Mountain News, which is shutting down today. The Rocky’s staff has been brave and unfliching in its coverage of the closing, which was first announced in December as a possibility if no one buys it. No one bought it. I have many friends there, and have written a lot of freelance articles for the Rocky, when I wasn’t working for the competition, The Denver Post, or in my current position, working for the Post’s owners, MediaNews Group.

The Rocky put this video on its home page today. It’s a well-done piece of work (even though at 21 minutes it’s incredibly long for an online news video). Although today’s edition is rife with self-focused emotion (I guess understandingly), this tribute is worth viewing. I doubt the local TV stations could do better:


Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.

Are newspapers finally embracing the Web?

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Leave it to a former rockcrit — and a McClatchy employee (the company just cut 10% of its workforce nationally) — to come up with an eloquent essay on the decline of the newspaper industry and the ascension of the Internet.

Online people, myself included, have been saying for years that the Web should be first in news priority, and that journalists shouldn’t think that they work for newsPAPER companies, but instead NEWS companies. Maybe, coming from an august writer like Leonard Pitts, a world-class columnist at the Miami Herald, this idea will start to sink in with those of you who still have ink in your veins.

He sounds like speeches and conversations I heard going on a decade ago, but better late than never, I say:

We still tend to regard our websites as ancillary to our primary mission of producing newspapers. But I submit that our primary mission is to report and comment upon the news and that it is the newspaper itself that has become ancillary.

So maybe we should regard the Internet not as an extra thing we do, but as the core thing we do.

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